80: Chapter 80 Piercing the Sky

Xue You turned his head abruptly, staring at Li Zhengyang, who was panting heavily opposite him. His eyes were filled with madness.

"How dare you sever my arm?"

He was an Overlord Level demon. Having just devoured the Nether Dragon Venerable, he had stepped into the Martial Venerable realm. In the Northern Wilderness, this was an absolutely top-tier existence. Yet, before he could even warm his seat on the throne, he had been dismembered by a 5th Grade Martial Emperor. The sense of humiliation instantly overwhelmed the intense pain.

Li Zhengyang spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva and grinned. "What? Can't handle being called trash?"

He gripped the abyssal meteor dragon spear tightly with both hands. He looked cavalier on the surface, but only he knew his internal condition. Even though the [Tyrannosaurus Bone] was repairing his blood energy at 200% speed, it couldn't keep up with the reckless expenditure from moments ago. The crimson gold light of the Indestructible Golden Body had already dimmed.

"I'm going to mince you into meat paste!"

Xue You roared. His only remaining right arm lifted abruptly. Blood energy gathered in mid-air, forming a massive blood-colored blade. No longer arrogant, Xue You mobilized his full potential as a Martial Venerable and slashed down.

Li Zhengyang sank his knees slightly and held the dragon spear horizontally. Clang! The blood blade slammed heavily onto the shaft of the abyssal meteor dragon spear. The ground collapsed with a boom. Li Zhengyang's legs were smashed directly into the earth, sinking up to his knees. The terrifying recoil surged back along the spear shaft. The web between his thumb and index finger split open, and blood flowed down the shaft.

"Block? What are you going to block with?"

Xue You's face twisted as he pressed down fiercely. Bang! Li Zhengyang was sent flying, crashing into a pile of ruins. Just as he stood up, Xue You was already in front of him. He kicked Li Zhengyang in the chest. Crack. The sound of ribs breaking was crisp and piercing. Li Zhengyang flew backward another dozen meters.

"Get up!"

Xue You stepped on the dragon spear, looking down at him from above. "Where's that crazy energy from before? Try severing another one of my arms!"

He raised his right hand, and his blood-colored Protective Qi transformed into sharp claws, stabbing directly into Li Zhengyang's shoulder. Puchi. The claws pierced through flesh, pinning Li Zhengyang firmly to the ground.

As the intense pain struck, Li Zhengyang gritted his teeth, not letting out a single groan. He gripped the short blade at his waist with his left hand and stabbed it toward Xue You's lower leg. Clang! The short blade was deflected by his Protective Qi, its edge curling. The absolute suppression of cultivation realms was revealed without a doubt at this moment.

"Still want to resist?"

Xue You grinned hideously. He was in no rush to deliver the killing blow; the anger of having his arm severed made him want to crush this human's will bit by bit. "I will peel off your skin first, drain your blood energy, and let your soul watch as your own body turns into a puddle of mush."

Xue You raised his arm high. In his palm, a blood-colored sphere of light began to compress frantically.

In a pool of blood in the distance, Assistant Chen Feng roared hoarsely. "Dodge!" But he knew it was impossible to dodge.

Just at this critical moment, boom! The thick layer of dark clouds in the sky was suddenly torn open. A single bolt of lightning appeared without warning.

Xue You's scalp tingled. He felt an unprecedented crisis of life and death, a hundred times stronger than when he faced the abyssal meteor dragon spear earlier. Retreat! Instinctively, Xue You abandoned the attempt to kill Li Zhengyang and pulled back.

But it was too late. The lightning bolt magnified rapidly in his eyes, piercing directly through the blood-colored Protective Qi surrounding him. Sshhh. With a tearing sound, Xue You's body froze in place.

He looked down. In his line of sight, the right arm that was about to unleash a killing blow detached smoothly from his shoulder. Plop. It fell heavily beside Li Zhengyang's feet.

"Ah!!!" A scream a hundred times more miserable than before rang out. Xue You stumbled backward, both shoulders now bare, blood spraying wildly. He had become a human stick.

"In my territory, harming my people. Who gave you the nerve?" A domineering voice descended from the sky. Lightning converged in mid-air. A figure stood in the air, holding a long sword made of thunder.

Lei Qianjue had arrived. The absolute ruler of the Northern Territory. Seeing that figure, Assistant Chen Feng, who was on the ground, finally relaxed his tense nerves a little and collapsed into the pool of blood, exhausted.

Xue You looked at Lei Qianjue in mid-air, his eyes filled with immense fear. "Lei Qianjue... how did you return so quickly!" His voice was trembling.

"A piece of trash that just touched the threshold of a Martial Venerable, and you think you're qualified to inquire about my whereabouts?" Lei Qianjue didn't even glance at him properly. He raised the long sword in his hand slightly. This demon had to die. Every extra Overlord Level demon meant another fatal gap in the Northern Territory defense line. Strike while they are down.

Hum. As the long sword was raised, the entire sky instantly darkened. Thousands upon thousands of sword auras appeared out of thin air behind Lei Qianjue, dense and packed, all locking onto Xue You. Each sword aura contained enough destructive power to slaughter a Martial Emperor.

"Slash!" Ten thousand swords fired simultaneously. Like a rainstorm, they poured down toward Xue You, sealing off all paths of retreat.

Xue You's knees went weak. He couldn't escape. Absolutely couldn't escape. The sheer weight of a veteran Martial Venerable, the protector of the nation, completely shattered all the pride he had felt after his breakthrough.

"This is what you forced me to do!" Xue You roared, looking up, a flash of determination in his eyes. He bit his tongue tip and sprayed a mouthful of heart blood into mid-air. Immediately after, his body began to swell bizarrely.

"Blood Escape: Ten Thousand Bat Dispersion!" Boom! The instant before the sword rain fell, Xue You's body exploded, transforming into tens of thousands of blood-colored bats.

The sword rain instantly pinned more than 90% of the bats to the ground, turning them into ashes. However, a small number of bats, at the cost of burning decades of lifespan, forcibly tore through the space locked by thunder. They turned into dozens of red streaks, fleeing frantically toward the depths of the Northern Wilderness. Their speed was clearly not at the level of an early-stage Martial Venerable.

Lei Qianjue's gaze narrowed. "Trying to run?" His figure flickered, merging into the air, and he turned into a bolt of racing thunder to give chase. Sonic booms exploded in the sky in succession, gradually fading into the distance.

...

A few minutes later. Above the ruins of the Pojun Division, lightning flashed again. Lei Qianjue's figure landed steadily. He glanced in the direction of the Northern Wilderness depths, frowned slightly, and sheathed his sword.

The speed of the secret technique Xue You activated by burning his lifespan was too fast, and his aura had scattered into hundreds of paths. If he chased too deep into the Northern Wilderness, it would be easy to fall into the traps of other high-level demons. The branch had just been attacked and was in ruins; he could not afford to leave for too long.

"Consider yourself lucky." Lei Qianjue turned around, his gaze sweeping over the devastated base. Dead bodies were everywhere. The smell of blood in the air was thick enough to make one nauseous. His gaze crossed several collapsed walls and finally landed on that charred figure.

Li Zhengyang lay on the ground, eyes tightly closed. His breathing was extremely weak. The overloaded battle across cultivation realms had completely overdrawn every bit of blood energy in his body. If it weren't for the [Tyrannosaurus Bone] still desperately holding onto his last breath, he would have been done for long ago.

Lei Qianjue walked over. Beside Li Zhengyang were two demon arms. One had a smooth cut, still retaining the charred traces of thunder. That was the one he had just sliced off with his sword. The other, with a mangled, bloody stump, faintly exuded a domineering destructive force. That was Li Zhengyang's masterpiece.

Lei Qianjue, a protector of the nation who had experienced a hundred years of slaughter and whose heart had long been as still as water, felt a flash of astonishment in his eyes. He bent down slightly and checked Li Zhengyang's pulse. He murmured in a low voice, "A 5th Grade Martial Emperor, severing an arm from an Overlord Level demon..." "The sky of this Northern Territory... might really be pierced through by you."